Fish Eaters Are Smarter Than The Rest Of Us

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It’s possible that our mothers were right about fish being brain food. If only we had eaten more, we might have known that. Or not. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh are convinced that people who eat a lot fish, baked or broiled but not fried, have larger brain volumes in regions associated with memory and cognition. The researchers, who analyzed the dietary habits and brain scans of 260 people over 65 over a ten year period, found that those who ate baked or broiled fish at least once a week had greater gray matter brain volumes in areas of the brain responsible for memory (4.3 percent) and cognition (14 percent) and were more likely to have a college education than those who didn’t eat fish regularly. And now the strange part: the researchers could not find a relationship between omega-3 levels and the brain changes, as they had expected to. What then, is boosting the brain power? Tough one. The researchers attribute that to “lifestyle factors.”

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